Search results for

NPR's Eric Westervelt reports on sports fans in Philadelphia. They've always been tough to please, but now that their teams are winning some don't know how to react.

NPR's Bob Edwards speaks with sports commentator John Feinstein about the doldrums of professional basketball. Feinstein says the NBA is trying to overcome the retirement of Michael Jordan.

Morning Edition's listeners share memories of their favorite Christmas gifts. Film projectors, escaping pianos, flying girlfriends, and shiny bicycles top the list.

Electricity deregulation was supposed to bring Californians lower prices. Instead they've gotten higher prices and unreliable service. Scott Horsley of member station KPBS reports on why this happened, including mistaken judgements in planning the big change and the fact that electricity cannot be stored to meet market demand.

News analyst Daniel Schorr says the latest attempt at renewing middle east peace talks faces many hazards. President Clinton called Wednesday the deadline for the two sides to demonstrate enough potential to work towards another summit. Prime Minister Barak faces a deadline of February 6 when Israelis vote on whether or not to keep him in office---and Yasser Arafat faces the prospect of having to deal with Ariel Sharon, should Barak lose the election.

Robert Siegel talks with BBC Southeast Asia correspondent Jonathan Head about the numerous bombings of churches in Indonesia on Christmas Eve. Eighteen different bombs, which killed more than a dozen people and injured over a hundred, exploded within minutes of one another. Most of the bombs were planted in cars parked in front of the churches, and others were delivered to clergymen as wrapped gifts. The police defused 13 devices. No one claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Commentator Nancy Hall talks about the culinary clash with her new Northerner husband, as they planned their first holiday dinner together. The bickering over competing foods peaked with the arrival of a southern country ham. Her Yankee butcher husband balked at slicing ham with a moldy hide, but their guests ate it with abandon.

Our piece continues.

Robert talks with the band 8 1/2 Souvenirs. They're a cosmopolitan swing band based in Austin, Texas. They play a few songs and talk with Robert about some of the influences behind it.

Bob Mondello reviews the film Thirteen Days, starring Bruce Greenwood as President Kennedy and Kevin Costner as a presidential advisor. The movie is based on the book The Kennedy Tapes--Instead the White House During the Cuban Missile Crisis. The story starts in October of 1962, when President John F. Kennedy announced the U.S. response to the presence of medium-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. For the following week, Soviet military vessels raced toward the Caribbean as the rest of the world held its breath. The film opened today in New York and Los Angeles.